At Uber, dinner is being served earlier now

Uber holds its catered dinner for employees at 8:15 p.m., Monday through Friday.

That’s changing. Now food will be served at 7 p.m.

The ride-hailing company is in the midst of a major shakeup after months of revelations and scandals have led to two extensive investigations, a handful of lawsuits and some time off for its CEO Travis Kalanick.

Changing the time of its nightly catered dinner is just one of 47 recommendations to come out of a months-long investigation by former US Attorney General Eric Holder. His 13-page report, which was released to the public on Tuesday, looked into systemic discrimination, harassment and retaliation at the San Francisco-based company.

For the inquiry, Holder’s team conducted more than 200
interviews with current and former employees and read through 3 million
documents. It also held focus groups with the staff about perceptions of
Uber’s workplace culture.

Uber’s board unanimously voted on Sunday to adopt all of the recommendations.

Holder’s
report has much of what you’d expect, including leadership coaching for
senior management, establishing a better complaint process, recruiting
from a more diverse talent pool and soliciting anonymous feedback from
employees.

But some recommendations are a little more interesting — especially if you read between the lines.

Take
the recommendation on “romantic or intimate relationships.” Holder’s
report advises the company to make clear that any type of relationship
between a subordinate and boss should be prohibited.

Or the
guidelines on alcohol and drug consumption. The report recommends Uber
create rules around the acceptable and unacceptable use of alcohol and
should “strictly prohibit the use of controlled substances.” The use of
alcohol during “core work hours” should also be prohibited.

Holder
additionally recommends that Uber “reformulate” its 14 cultural values.
Up until now, when new hires joined the company, they were asked to
subscribe to a unique set of “values.” These included meritocracy,
toe-stepping, principled confrontation and “always be hustlin’.”

Holder
wrote in his report that Uber should “reformulate its written cultural
values because it is vital that they reflect more inclusive and positive
behaviors.”

The board’s decision to accept all of these recommendations shows it
appears to be serious about changing Uber, which has a market value of
$68 billion and is often talked about as one of the most promising
startups yet to go public.

But even the board has its work cut out for it.

On Tuesday, after Kalanick announced he was taking a leave of absence, board member Arianna Huffington spoke to employees during an all-hands meeting and shared Holder’s recommendations. According to leaked audio of the meeting obtained by Yahoo News, she said, “There’s a lot of data that shows when there’s one woman on the board, it’s much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board.”

David Bonderman, another Uber board member, responded, “Actually what it shows is that it’s much more likely to be more talking.”

Twitter had fun with that exchange.

Bonderman resigned later that same day, Uber confirmed.

As
for that catered dinner? An earlier time accommodates a “broader group
of employees,” Holder wrote, “including employees who have spouses or
families waiting for them at home, and that signals an earlier end to
the work day.”